Review: Easy Rider (1969)

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Easy Rider

Rating

Director

Dennis Hopper

Screenplay

Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Terry Southern

Length

1h 35m

Starring

Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Antonio Mendoza, Phil Spector, Mac Mashourian, Warren Finnerty, Tita Colorado, Luke Askew, Luana Anders, Sabrina Scharf, Sandy Wyeth, Robert Walker

MPAA Rating

Basic Plot

Two drug-addicted hippies travel cross-country to participate in Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Review

It might be easy to lump “Easy Rider” into a group of films about drugs, motorcycles, hippies and women, but that would be lumping it together with some really terrible films. It isn’t a film for everyone. It might even offend some, but it is definitely a true slice of hippie Americana in the 1960s.

The film opens on two men purchasing a bundle of drugs in Mexico. They ride their bikes back to California where they sell them to a rich addict underneath low-flying airplanes. They make quite a bit of money off of the deal and use it to travel across the country to New Orleans so they can attend Mardi Gras.

Along the way, they meet various hippies and hitchhikers and get into many scrapes with bigoted individuals who don’t like “long-hairs.” There is one scene in a diner where six girls are cooing over the trio (Jack Nicholson joined Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in an earlier segment) while a group of redneck men are eyeballing them making rude and unnecessary comments.

Hippie life in the ’60s wasn’t as glorious as it has been depicted by some. Nor is being a hippie reserved only for societal outcasts. “Easy Rider” is a film that goes a long way to prove those ideals.

The entire cast performs well, including Fonda, Hopper and Nicholson. Nicholson shows that he has the stuff with his performance as a well-to-do lawyer who helps them get out of jail. He is a bit bizarre and has a penchant for alcohol, but is won over to drugs. At one point he shows them a pass to a whorehouse in New Orleans with high quality prostitutes.

“Easy Rider” is a socially conscious film and a great debut for actor-writer-director Dennis Hopper, but it is extremely slow and really lacks a stable plot. The end makes up for the errors, as do the performances, but it is definitely not a film that everyone can enjoy.